I Was Born In A Small Town
My hometown, as Midwestern as they come, was once a prosperous mix of agriculture, manufacturing and state largesse with its 10,000 student population at the local school, Eastern Illinois University. For those of you in the football know – this is the University that produced both Tony Romo of Dallas Cowboy fame and Mike Shannahan the erstwhile coach of the Denver Broncos. It is a proud town with an interesting heritage.

Yet, like so much of the Midwest these days, the manufacturing base has dried up. Moore Business Forms, the Brown Shoe Factory, Addressograph, Trailmobile – once booming concerns and providers of a solid income to the locals – packed up years ago. Moreover, because Illinois fell prey to the most dysfunctional of political gerrymandering, the local University has suffered as well. Once endowed by the state to the tune of about 52 million a year, that fell last year to around 16 million. Student enrollment is down to 7500. I’ve a good friend who is fighting hard to right the ship. He remains optimistic. Property taxes are eye-popping. A five acre plot outside of town, with a decent sized home on it, gets fleeced for between $15,000 and $20,000 per year. In town those rates are even more confiscatory. And the state recently had to suspend the lottery for a bit because the supposedly sacrosanct and sequestered funds were in question.  The answer from the political betters is always: “More taxes.” And so it goes. The ravenous, machine politics of Chicago have slowly devoured a once prosperous state.

And you feel it everywhere. The beautiful downtown square, once home to storied, generational family businesses, is mostly shuttered. I counted a jewelry shop, a music store, a used book nook and a few law offices. The moniker “rust belt” fits the situation quite well. Charleston seems to have become the buckle of the rust belt.

There are still pockets of prosperity. I’ve friends in various service industries, particularly food and beverage, who manage mini-monopolies. People still eat and drink. There is a solid private banking concern. And as always, the farmers remain. They built this town so many years ago – long before the University or the factories. The loamy, black soil of Illinois continues to produce bumper crops of soybeans and corn. For what Illinois lacks in mountain vistas it makes up with boundless tracks of lush, green cornfields. There is a satisfying beauty to the symmetry and vastness of the fields. I recall Whitman:
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O Earth, that hast no voice, confide to me a voice!
O harvest of my lands! O boundless Summer growths!
O lavish, brown, parturient earth! O infinite, teeming womb!
O theatre of time, and day, and night!
A verse, to seek to see, to narrate thee.
~Walt Whitman, A Carol of Harvest

I graduated Charleston High School in 1977. I moved to Colorado in 1979. I’ve never looked back. I’ve only come back. I nevertheless am grateful to the good Lord for this town and how it helped stitch me together. In a couple of hours, I will go to meet up with some of the folks who were a part of that quilting party.  We’ll listen to the boys who were part of a long-haired garage band back in the day. Some have  long since “parted” ways with their golden locks. Bald is the new plush. Yet, they can still crank out covers of the 60’s and 70’s with the best of them. They are good lads. They’ve asked me to sing a tune, but I might defer. I’m not sure what I would do with an electric guitar. I don’t rock. I celt. Without the security blanket of my own wee Celtic band I would feel rather naked. However, if they ask me to jump on a mic to help them sing Free Bird  I’ll be all over that. If it does happen I’ll include the video tomorrow! May the Lord bless richly your Sunday.  ~CJ